Contaminated land who is reponsible for telling buyers?

go_cat

If a house is built on what is now classed as contaminated land , whose repsonsibility is it to tell potential buyers ?

The environmental searches / solictors or vendor?

Could the vendor be sued / liable for not mentioning it even if not asked / on any forms to fill in ?

Apparently it has been classed as safe to humans by council / environmental people

Anything else I need to be aware of ?

Thanks in advance

mufi

go_cat wrote: »

Could the vendor be sued / liable for not mentioning it even if not asked / on any forms to fill in ?

Thanks in advance

Nope. Caveat emptor applies, unless the vendor was asked either verbally or in writing in which case, if provable, the vendor would be liable had he lied.

geewcee

Sorry to hijack your thread 'go cat' but I just had some searches done on a house we are potentially purchasing and its come back with a big 'unknown' on the contaminated land part of the search. In other words an entire estate seems to have been built on a piece of land that was never checked for contamination but has a high potential to be classed as contaminated! The report we received is nearly 100 pages long so I need to read thru it all but the solicitors letter explains that we may have difficulty obtaining insurance for the house now, and as you know you need to have this in place before exhange of contracts takes place (meant to be 10th Jan!). There is also an option to take out extra insurance (around £200 per year) that protects you from being liable for cleanup if the land is assessed as contaminated in the future. What baffles me more is how people have bought the other 300 properties on the estate with no problems, and how planning could let the building of the estate go ahead without the necessary checks on the state of the land? Anyone else been in a similar situation. Not sure how to proceed and our solicitors is shut now till the 3rd so cant ring for advice. They were offering to investigate further at an hourly charge of £120, with no idea of timescale.

SecondLegDownIsTheBigOne

mufi wrote: »

Nope. Caveat emptor applies, unless the vendor was asked either verbally or in writing in which case, if provable, the vendor would be liable had he lied.

Which is why I have a comprehensive list of direct questions that I always ask the vendors. Often to their surprise.

mufi

SecondLegDownIsTheBigOne wrote: »

Which is why I have a comprehensive list of direct questions that I always ask the vendors. Often to their surprise.

In writing?

We sold last year and our purchaser, a well-respected local professional, subsequently lied about verbally asking us a question prior to exchange; he was also prepared to lie that his wife was present when the imaginary conversation took place. It took us nearly a year, and quite a bit of money on legal fees, to get him to withdraw the allegations.

olly300

geewcee, one reason land wasn't checked is because laws change over time. This means the developer didn't have to check what was on the land and people brought not knowing whether the land was contaminated or not

Mortgage companies didn't use to care either until they were stuck with unsaleable properties.

You can investigate the situation yourself by contacting the local council to see if they have any more information.

Your solicitor isn't likely to be able to get records if your council doesn't have them. Also depending on when the land was built on you may find yourself talking to someone in the council who dealt with planning/building regulations for the estate so may be able to give you a better idea of what was on the land. More info here on who you need to talk to - http://www.environmental-protection.org.uk/land-quality/contaminated-land-and-your-home/

Like with your solicitor you will have to wait until the New Year to get this information so I would delay the exchange of contracts until you have done this.

I phoned up my council to ask about my property and so did a few others.


BTW geewcee when you write put spaces between your paragraphs it makes it easier to read.

Thrugelmir

olly300 wrote: »

You can investigate the situation yourself by contacting the local council to see if they have any more information.

As an example. I believe Berkshire have around 10,000 sites under investigation. Where historical activity could impact on the condition of the land.

When selling my own house (bought some 16 years previously as new). A search turned up a chemical works on the site from the 1850's. As was a rural location came as a total surprise.

geewcee

cheers olly I appreciate your reply. (and your tip about paragraphs!) I'll look into it myself then - I know the land was an old brickwork factory as it was demolished 10 years ago, so I'm surprised that the planning laws have changed in that short space of time (existing houses on there are around 8 years old).

What kind of timescale do you think this will take? Is it as easy as a quick phonecall or is it much more involved. There are houses being bought and sold on the estate all the time so I'm surprised the solicitor hasnt come across this before. (small town, one of the largest solicitors)